India’s Response to the 2025 Kashmir Crisis: Strategic Escalation and Doctrinal Innovation

Analysis

By Dr Lauren Dagan Amoss,Bar Ilan University

In April 2025, a devastating terrorist attack in the Pahalgam region of Jammu and Kashmir shattered India’s sense of internal security. It set in motion one of the most assertive and doctrinally consequential responses in the country’s modern history. While Operation Sindoor began as a targeted retaliation against Pakistan-based terrorist infrastructure, it quickly transcended the immediate tactical context. It became a strategic inflexion point—an overt attempt by India to redefine the rules of engagement in South Asia. Through the suspension of foundational bilateral agreements, the assertion of strategic autonomy, and the formal elevation of terrorism to the status of casus belli, India fundamentally rearticulated its national security posture.

This article analyzes the doctrinal transformation catalyzed by the 2025 crisis, situating it within the broader trajectory of India’s evolving military and diplomatic behavior. It argues that New Delhi’s response to the Pahalgam attack marked not just a moment of deterrence restoration, but the unveiling of a new strategic grammar—one that blurs the lines between sub-conventional threats and conventional warfare, and redefines sovereignty in an age of proxy violence.

The Pahalgam attack on April 22, 2025, stands as one of the most harrowing terrorist incidents on Indian soil in recent memory. Twenty-six civilians, primarily Hindu tourists—including several newly married couples—were executed in cold blood. The perpetrators, reportedly affiliated with The Resistance Front (TRF), an offshoot of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), were widely believed to have operated with the backing of Pakistani intelligence. The brutality of the attack—and its symbolic targeting of national cohesion—prompted a rapid and coordinated response from New Delhi. Within hours, the Indian government suspended its participation in the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty, downgraded diplomatic ties with Islamabad, and authorized Operation Sindoor, a tri-service military strike campaign against identified terrorist infrastructure located across both Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

Yet Operation Sindoor was more than a retaliatory strike; it marked a significant doctrinal shift in India’s national security posture. In an official statement, the Indian government declared that henceforth, any terrorist attack originating from Pakistani territory would be treated as an act of war. This announcement signalled a departure from the traditional policy of strategic restraint, embedding a new approach centred on compellence, preemption, and expanded rules of engagement.

A Doctrinal Shift at the Edge of the Nuclear Threshold

The Pahalgam attack and India's forceful response through Operation Sindoor did not merely signify tactical escalation—they embodied a shift in India's national security doctrine. In a striking departure from previous frameworks, the Indian government declared that all future terrorist attacks traced to Pakistani soil would henceforth be treated as acts of war. This marks a doctrinal transformation from deterrence to compellence: from attempting to prevent attacks through restraint, to imposing costs designed to alter adversary behavior. For the first time, India institutionalized the idea that non-state terror, if state-enabled, could warrant a conventional military response across sovereign borders.

The crisis, however, extended far beyond conventional military signalling—it brushed dangerously close to the nuclear threshold. Though brief in duration, the May 2025 confrontation between India and Pakistan featured calibrated air and missile strikes, coordinated drone swarms, and, most significantly, overt nuclear signalling. As Indian forces targeted terrorist infrastructure deep within Pakistani territory, reports emerged that Islamabad had convened its National Command Authority (NCA)—the institution tasked with authorising nuclear weapons deployment. Although Pakistani officials later denied activating their nuclear command chain, the timing of the announcement—closely aligned with a direct diplomatic intervention by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio—strongly suggests a calculated signal of escalation intent.

India, for its part, refused to be drawn into nuclear brinkmanship. Prime Minister Modi stated unequivocally that “nuclear threats will not deter justice,” sending a clear message that nuclear blackmail would not shield state-sponsored terrorism from consequences.

India officially adheres to a “No First Use” (NFU) doctrine, albeit with qualifications introduced in 2003, including the right to retaliate with nuclear weapons in response to chemical or biological attacks. Pakistan, by contrast, maintains deliberate ambiguity, with unofficial red lines including loss of territory, decapitation of key military assets, or existential economic and political collapse in 2025.

Both countries reportedly possess approximately 170 nuclear warheads each (SIPRI, 2024). India exhibits qualitative superiority in the naval aspect of its triad, while Pakistan focuses on medium-range delivery systems such as the Shaheen II. Although analysts widely agree that the threshold for nuclear use remains high—particularly in the absence of a ground war—the risk of miscalculation, technical failure, or terror-triggered escalation remains acute. As past incidents such as India’s accidental cruise missile launch into Pakistan in 2022 demonstrate, even minor failures could have catastrophic implications. As John Erath of the Center for Arms Control once warned: “Even a small nuclear risk is too large a risk when the weapons in question can end cities.”

In the immediate aftermath of the Pahalgam massacre, one of India's first moves was not military, but symbolic and strategic. New Delhi announced the suspension of its obligations under the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty (IWT), a World Bank-brokered agreement long viewed as a model of hydro-diplomacy, even amid multiple wars between the two countries. The treaty had divided control over six rivers between the two nations: India over the Beas, Ravi, and Sutlej; Pakistan over the Indus, Jhelum, and Chenab. Its durability for 65 years had elevated it to a rare "protected space" in the otherwise volatile India–Pakistan relationship. That space collapsed in May 2025.

Operation Sindoor, therefore, was not merely India’s answer to cross-border terrorism. It marked the opening salvo in a broader effort to redefine thresholds—legal, doctrinal, and strategic. This shift was evident not only in the military domain but also in India’s approach to regional treaties and nuclear deterrence, where carefully calibrated actions met deliberate signaling.

As the crisis unfolded, India’s willingness to test the boundaries of escalation—both conventional and symbolic—revealed a new posture: one that privileges initiative, flexibility, and the strategic use of ambiguity.

By weaponizing water for the first time in the bilateral context, India signaled that no domain—including humanitarian or environmental spheres, would remain immune from strategic recalibration if Pakistan continued to support proxy terror. While this move bolstered India's coercive leverage, it also raised concerns globally regarding the erosion of humanitarian norms and the use of natural resources as punitive tools

Parallel to the breakdown of the Indus framework, senior Indian officials also hinted that the 1972 Shimla Agreement was now "effectively defunct." For decades, the Shimla framework had served as a diplomatic firewall, anchoring bilateralism and managing cross-border escalation, especially around the Line of Control (LoC) in Kashmir. By suggesting that the agreement no longer constrained its actions, India reasserted the right to pursue adversaries even beyond the LoC, should the diplomatic mechanisms fail to prevent terror emanating from Pakistan.

These moves represent more than tactical bargaining—they reflect a deliberate effort to dismantle the Cold War–era scaffolding of conflict management and replace it with new norms based on preemptive action, flexible escalation, and regional dominance. The message from New Delhi is unambiguous: India will not be bound by old agreements if the adversary continues to violate their spirit through asymmetric means.

Conclusion

The 2025 Kashmir crisis revealed a new India—one that no longer confines itself to legacy agreements or assumes symmetry with its western neighbor. By responding swiftly and decisively to terror, suspending foundational treaties, and asserting control over the narrative, India demonstrated its ability to act alone, act first, and act with moral and strategic clarity. Yet the crisis also exposed the fragility of deterrence in a nuclearized region, where miscalculation or manipulation by proxies can spiral rapidly. The new doctrine, forged in the fire of Pahalgam, signals a departure from passive restraint to calibrated compellence. Whether this model enhances long-term stability—or simply shifts the risk—remains a question for the next confrontation.

Disclaimer: This paper is the author's individual scholastic contribution and does not necessarily reflect the organization's viewpoint.